I have to confess: I’m one of those half-adults that never learnt to drive. Cue shock, horror and possible unsubscription.

When I was growing up in Jamaica, learning to drive wasn’t the right of passage it is for many teens in developed countries. Not many families had cars and, even if they did, you often had to bribe officials to get your licence. When my mum’s Australian licence expired, she refused to bribe anyone to get new one but she still drove around so we ended up just lived in fear of getting pulled over by the police and her getting in trouble. And most likely having to pay a bigger bribe to get out of said trouble. I learnt to drive in the back streets of the rural area where we lived (inc. reversing up a long, steep driveway) but never drove on any main roads. Actually I lie. Once I ended up accidentally having to drive on a main road for about 5 seconds – it was fucking terrifying!

Anyway, it seems I haven’t lost my talent for digression. When I moved to Sydney, I was the right age to get my licence but I lived with my grandparents. I knew if I learnt to drive I would end up becoming my grandpa’s chauffeur and I didn’t like my grandpa so I refused to get my licence. Yep, I refused to learn to drive out of spite and, honestly, I regret nothing. Fast forward sixteen years and here I am. On my third round of L plates, wondering if I really and truly need to learn to drive.

See, I’ve sat the computer test three times but never actually taken my driving test. The first time, Jared had a manual car, the lessons were hard and then the guy was a creep so I gave up and my Ls expired. Eventually, I sat the computer test again, can’t remember why I didn’t bother learning properly that time but, either way, my licence expired again. This time, I’ve sat the computer test and done lessons with an instructor, Jared and my mum and I’ve got the test booked in for 2 weeks’ time and I’m fucking freaking out.

You see, in Australian teen drivers have to keep a logbook and have 100 (or is it 120?) hours of driving time before they can sit their test. When you’re over 25, you don’t need a log book and the hour limit doesn’t apply to you. You can basically sit your test whenever you’re ready. And I don’t feel ready. The thought that I might be loose on the streets behind the wheel of a moving vehicle is a terrifying thought. I don’t think I’m an intentionally unsafe driver but I’m definitely not super confident. And driving on the road and seeing how other people – supposedly qualified drivers – drive is definitely not making me feel any safer.

It’s scary out there! People don’t follow the rules and driving takes so much concentration. I find it hard to stay focused when something is really monotonous so I’m worried I’m going to zone out on a long stretch of road, go through a red light and… let’s just end this nightmare right here. Gah! I live in the city. Why do I need to drive?! Also, I have a husband who is an excellent chauffeur. Then again, he has said I can get a Mini Cooper if I get my licence… so there’s that little incentive. But then again, it means I have to learn to drive. Ahhhhh… being a grown up is full of tough decisions, you guys.

I suppose I can get my licence and keep driving with supervision until I feel more confident. But – PLOT TWIST!! – I can’t drive Jared’s car if/when I move up to a provisional licence because his car is on a forbidden list for P Platers (i.e. it’s too powerful). So I suppose I’ll just have to get that Mini Cooper then… 😉

I’m just going to put it out there and say I could do both of these things before marriage. But, on a serious note, has being married changed anything? I ask myself this a bit actually and I’d have to say no – aside from giving each of us the option to give the other one shit with the occasional “oh this is what it’s like to be married now?” or “I don’t have to ask permission anymore, you’re my husband/wife, you’re officially property” jibe. So yeah, nothing’s changed in any kind of meaningful adult way.

What has changed is my work situation, which I’m pretty excited about. One of Jared’s managers quit and I’ve cut back my hours with one of my bosses so I can take on the social media component of her role. Super chuffed about that (although also a little scared). On top of that, one of his bars has started taking event bookings so I’m also the new Events Coordinator (or Captain of Events as I have self-titled myself – it’s a 1940s French Liberation themed bar). I’ll also be going to the managers meetings to see if I can make things more efficient there and generally make Jared’s life a bit easier so overall a lot more to do with his bars and a bit of a step back from my office management role (including dropping some of the stuff I wasn’t enjoying there – win!).

And the final and some might say greatest achievement – I GET TO WORK FROM HOME. Full disclosure: I do have to go in for a few hours on Thursdays and I’ll also need to go to the bars at some point to get content for my social media posts but, overall, this little piggy doesn’t have to go to market anymore. Woohoo. If this is married life, I’m digging it.

On the downside, my little puggy has been a bit more huffy and puffy than usual so I asked the vet to give him an extra look over at his monthly check up. Sadly, he has an enlarged heart which is putting pressure on his lungs and they don’t know what’s causing it. We leave him at the specialist on Wednesday for a bit of a closer look but basically, whatever they tell us, he’s just getting old.

The grumpy old sod is 12 now and, although he’s in pretty good nick (despite the missing eye and metal plate in his wrist), things are going to start failing him soon enough. Jared says I should feed him less cheese but I say let him live out his glory years in comfort and luxury. Although to be fair, he might have more glory years if I feed him less cheese. Note: I don’t actually feed him that much cheese, Jared just gives me extra shit on the few occasions when I do.

I grew up on a steady diet of Stephen King and horror movies. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, said all those terrible thing floating around in my head would come back and bite me on the ass (or something to that effect). As usual, I knew better… Until my mum moved to a separate house about 10 – 15mins walk away and I was left alone (aside from my step brother who I hardly spoke to and was never there). Oh boy did I regret all those scary movies and stories then. Sweet baby Jesus. That house could be super scary at night – creaky stairs, roaming dogs on loose rocks. Any sudden noise and I was convinced it was the end. And you’ve never seen darkness ’til you’ve lived in a rural area. There were no street lights nearby so, when it got dark, it got dark. None of that nice city light pollution to keep things from absolute devil’s asshole blackness.

Funny thing was, I was never scared of a human intruder (you know, something that can actually happen). Your garden variety thief, rapist or murderer didn’t rate on my scale of scary. For me, it was always the supernatural that frightened the crap out of me. Not vampires because they were sexy (I also liked Anne Rice, I think Lestat was my first love) but my memory could conjure up plenty of other evil night demons based on the pages and pages of horror stories I read over the years.

One of the scariest things I’ve ever read was a short story by Stephen King called The Road Virus Travels North. I must’ve been about 24 or 25 and it TERRIFIED me. I don’t even know why. When you think of the plot like a rational human being, it’s not all that scary.

In a nutshell:

Man goes to garage sale

Man buys drawing of monster driving car (first mistake: ignores warning about the scary history of the artist)

Drawing changes as monster now drives to meet him, killing everyone he holds dear along the way (including his poor old grandmother – wtf!)

Monster finds man

Monster kills man.

See, when it’s laid out like that it, it’s not too terrifying. It’s just all the horrible details King adds and his wonderful/terrible way of telling it. This story struck a nerve with me, maybe because the dude knew he was going to die and could do nothing about it. Even with the passage of so many years, I’m still a bit worried when recounting this story. It still freaks me out even though the rational part of my brain knows it’s not real.

After that, I kind of swore off horror. I decided a grown woman shouldn’t put herself in a situation where she needs to sleep with the light on, like a fucking child. Time passed and I thought I was a grown up so I saw Paranormal Activity at the movies with my mum and sister. BIG MISTAKE. My nerves were shot afterwards and it didn’t help that mum jumped out from around a corner and frightened the crap out of me as we were leaving the theatre. I went home and literally slept with the light on for a week. Every noise terrified me. I was often too scared to sleep – or even sleep facing away from the bedroom door – until Jared got home from work. It was that bad.

After that, he kind of put a ban on me. I couldn’t be trusted to act like a rational human being with a FAKE MOVIE about IMAGINARY and IMPOSSIBLE SHIT so I was not to watch these movies any more. Stephen King wasn’t writing any scary books so I was safe from temptation in that respect. Years went by. A few people asked me to see the various sequels for Paranormal Activity and I said, ‘Not a fucking chance in hell’. I even skip the station when the trailer comes on for a scary movie or TV series. I close my eyes and block my ears when it happens at the movies.

And then The Witch came out. The reviews were good. They said it was ‘different’ and ‘feminist’ so I was intrigued. We went to see it and I was fine (although I did close my eyes towards the end when it got a bit scary – Jared had to fill me in on what happened). ‘Maybe I’m cured,’ I thought. ‘Maybe I’m a big kid now.’ These were the optimistic thoughts floating round in my head when I decided to watch American Horror Story last weekend. After a few episodes of the first season (the one about the haunted/murder house), Jared exercised his right to veto, throwing in a ‘are you sure you should be watching this?’. I was pretty into the storyline but we found something else and all was well – except, in the back of my mind, I felt a little bit afraid. Just a little but enough to know I’d probably made a grave error.

And so it happened that, when I woke up this morning, it was the perfect storm for all my fears to come flooding back. Jared had already left for the day (I was alone, aside from the useless dogs) and the curtains were drawn in the dining room (so the apartment was nearly pitch black, with plenty of dark pockets for something to hide in). Usually, we leave the blinds open so the whole apartment is quite bright of a morning but not today. And, of course, my mind started whispering about the creature maybe/probably/definitely lurking by the couch – all sharp toothed and bloody mouthed – just waiting for me to make a noise/get out of bed so it can run in eat me/kill me then eat me/steal my soul/do whatever the fuck it is that monster do. Fuck fuck fuck! Fuck you American Horror Story and fuck me too for thinking I was adult enough to watch scary stuff again. God-fucking-dammit.

Let’s take a breath.

Obviously, I’m writing this now so there were no monsters, bloody mouthed or otherwise. Eventually I found the courage to scurry out and turn on all the lights before opening the curtains, all the while expecting something horrific to sink its teeth into my calf, ankle, neck, whatever. Nothing did. I survived. And now I’m thinking… maybe I can watch American Horror Story after all… I mean, I’m ok now, right?

I’m not a hugely emotionally expressive person and I’m pretty sure Jared will back me up on that. Add to this the fact that I don’t like to use words like ‘love’ and ‘miss’ unless I mean them and even then I’d probably have to be at least tipsy to say them out loud (or via text message). It takes me a loooong time to feel comfortable using those words in a friendship setting. I have people I’ve been friends with for nearly ten years that tease me about how uncomfortable I get when they try to coerce me into saying how much I like them or how much I’ve missed them.

In the last week, I’ve had two friends make me feel incredibly awkward and yes I’ll freely admit it’s because I’m emotionally retarded. One said “love you” as I sped off in an uber after dinner and the other messaged “miss you so much” when we were making dinner plans. I’m sure most people right now are thinking, “Yeah, so what? You’re friends, right?” Yes, we are but I just can’t use those words. I can’t. Not in a friendship setting. Or at least not in a friendship setting of less than a few years. I. Just. Can’t.

Luckily for me, the uber was driving away so I didn’t have to say anything in return because I was gone, baby, gone. Do I love this person? Honestly, no but I like them. There are very few friends I would use the word ‘love’ for because I take that word very seriously. It’s not something that applies to every relationship I have. I do consider them a good friend but not quite love status yet. Love status comes with time… or when you recognise someone is a kindred spirit and then they can skip the waiting period. That being said, this person is part of a group of friends that use the L word very liberally. It’s just another thing they say to one another. Still, it’s not something I can get on board with (unless I’m high/drunk and then all bets are off).

With the “miss you so much” message, this was more out of the blue. We’ve hung out a few times, always in a group party/social setting, and I made the move to see if she wanted to go to dinner. Made the move? Makes it sound like I’m courting her, which I suppose I kind of am. For friendship, that is (in this case). So yeah, we’re organising dinner and she throws in a “miss you so much” and I had to pause. I don’t think it’s creepy or too forward or anything like that, more that it’s always a shock to me that people can be so expressive and open with people they don’t necessarily know all that well. If I said it, I would feel fake but I suppose not everyone feels so strongly about these things. It’s just something nice to say to someone you like rather than super important words you only say to super important people.

This is definitely a ‘me’ thing, something that’s tangled up in my own personal weirdness when it comes to feelings, friendship and expressing emotion and, hell, probably even vulnerability. I’m just not willing to put myself out there with people I don’t know that well. And for someone like me, ‘people I don’t know that well’ can be people I’ve known and been kind-of friends with for years. It’s just part of what makes me:

I’ve spent the last two days attending seminars at the Sydney Writers Festival, which has actually been really fascinating. I’m not usually very good at sitting and listening for long stretches of time but things seemed to work in my favour the last few days.

One talk was about the different types of relationships we have with people and it inspired me to buy two new books although I have no idea when I’m going to read them. Perhaps this week which I’ll probably have free because I’ve finished my final assignment early! Yay. Go me.

Another talk was about The Stolen Generation, a time when the Australian Government forcibly removed Indigenous children from their mothers supposedly for welfare reasons but basically it was just straight up kidnapping. I was close to tears the whole time while the speakers, three Aboriginal women, read poems and told stories. They had their kids involved, including one little toddler that basically stole the show by running around the stage and through the crowd the whole time (even if it was a bit distracting). It was all very moving.

I attended a hilarious talk about how to write about sex and another one where two women sang and told us fairy tales, which was awesome. I felt like a little kid again, even if some of the stories had some rather large plot holes. There was a session where authors read passages from their books and one of the readers was Marlon James, who wrote A Brief History of Seven Killings, which I haven’t finished and am not sure I really like but still hearing someone speaking Jamaican patois made me feel very nostalgic.

I also attended a workshop for writing about the body. Holy shit, it was intense. Everyone had these crazy stories about overcoming cancer and amputation and all kinds of things and, being a relatively healthy person, I felt quite intimidated. We were given little prompts and then asked to write for a few minutes at a time and we then had the option to share what we’d written. Some of the writing was so powerful. People were in tears. Part of me didn’t want to go back after the break but I did and I’m glad. I finally got up the nerve to read one of my scribbles and was shaking by the end of it. Sharing your work via an online discussion board once you’ve had a chance to buff and polish it is one thing, reading it out to a room full of strangers when it’s in its rawest form is quite another. It was a very intense experience for me.

I’m attending another four sessions today, one about asylum seekers, another about life stories and two about female writers. I’m excited but I’m glad today’s the last day. My brain feels a bit overloaded although I definitely don’t regret going. This is so far removed from what I’d normally be doing with my weekend so I definitely feel like I’ve achieved adult status these past few days.